The new car will do 0-60mph in 1.9 seconds. It will do 0-100mph in 4.2 seconds, a time many supercars would be happy to reach 60mph in. Top speed? Unspecified – but it will be over 250mph.

And this is the base model, said Musk. There will be one even faster in time.

“The new Tesla Roadster will be the fastest production car ever made. Period,” he said.

Musk also revealed the new Tesla Roadster will do a standing quarter-mile in 8.9 seconds. This, he said, is the first time any production car has broken the nine-second barrier for the quarter-mile time.

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Don’t think your high-speed fun will quickly be over, either. The new Roadster will also have a 620-mile driving range, revealed Musk. Not only will it be the world’s fastest car, it will easily be the EV that can go the furthest between recharges.

Thank a massive 200 kWh battery for that; the upcoming new Nissan Leaf, for comparison, has a 40 kWh battery.

“The point of doing this is to give a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars,” said Musk. Take that, Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, he’s effectively saying. It certainly gives Porsche, which plans to launch its Mission E electric sports car in 2019, something to think about.

Speaking of launch dates, Tesla’s targeting 2020 to release the new Roadster, which will be a targa-roof 2+2 with all-wheel drive and clever torque-steering tech. It will have three electric motors – one up front, two in the rear.

How much will it cost? From $200,000 (£150,000), and Tesla’s insisting on a $50,000 (around £38,000) deposit.

The new Tesla Roadster harks back to the original Lotus-derived model, the firm’s first car, which was sold between 2008-2012. Back then, the high-performance EV certainly caused a stir. With the new one, Elon Musk is banking on doing it again.

He’s got the ‘production hell’ of the high-volume Tesla Model 3, the replacement for the Tesla Model S and the roll-out of the Tesla Truck to sort before then. Even so, the surprise debut of the new Tesla Roadster will undoubtedly give other supercar manufacturers something to think about.

When it makes production, it will undoubtedly set umpteen new benchmarks for production cars. The trick now is to ensure it actually makes production.

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